If we could only see that pattern, we would have a fighting chance. It is like one of those trompe l'oeil puzzles where you can only catch sight of the real picture by holding it a certain way.

The day will begin in the Marshall Islands of the far Pacific, where the sun first rises on our planet,and where locals will hold a daybreak underwater demonstration on their coral reef already threatened by rising seas.

Pakistani farmers – some of the millions driven from their homes by unprecedented flooding over the last two years – will mark the day on the banks of the Indus;

and so it will continue...

There will be actions in the cloud forests of Costa Rica, and in the highlands of Peru where drought has wrecked the lives of local farmers. In Monterrey, Mexico, they'll recall last year's floods that did nearly $2bn in damage. In Chamonix, France, climbers will put a giant red dot on the melting glaciers of the Alps...

In the high Sierra, on one of the glaciers steadily melting away, protesters will unveil a giant banner with just two words, a quote from that classic of western children's literature, The Wizard of Oz: "I'm melting" it will say, in letters three-stories high...

But McGibbon reckons the press will not be connecting the dots, neither will governments.

As he says: If we are going to tell this story – and it is the most important story of our time – we are going to have to tell it ourselves.